IP: OECD Consumer Policy Committee

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "James Love" <james.love () cptech org>
Reply-To: "James Love" <james.love () cptech org>
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 09:46:21 -0500
To: <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: OECD Consumer Policy Committee

Dave,

The OECD Consumer Policy Committee met this week in Paris.   We have been
asking the US and the EU to begin discussions on global cooperation on
addressing spam problems, if not solving every possible problem, finding
areas where there are less controversial steps that can improve things,
recognizing the cross border nature of these problems, and what should be
obvious limitations on addressing this on a state-by-state or
country-by-country basis.    This was our letter asking Mozelle Thompson to
push for OECD discussions on controlling spam.  We have asked the US
government to do this for a couple of years -- they talk about a zillion
other e-commerce issues, including those relating to the cross border
protection of various IP right owners, but the cross border enforcement of
any consumer protection measures is opposed largely on ideological grounds.
But we are optimistic that there may be some movement.     People forward
about 10,000 pieces of spam to the FTC every day.  The FTC doesn't classify
these as "complaints," but if you do, it would put spam in a league of its
own in terms of requests for the FTC to act.     Jamie

http://www.cptech.org/ecom/spam/murismozelle.html

                                       Ralph Nader
                                       P.O. Box 19312
                                       Washington, DC 20036

                                        James Love
                                        Consumer Project on
                                             Technology
                                        http://www.cptech.org


March 6, 2002

Chairman Timothy J. Muris
Commissioner Mozelle W. Thompson
US Federal Trade Commission

Dear Commissioners Muris and Thompson:

This is a request to ask the OECD Consumer Policy Committee to put on its
work program efforts to find consensus on global actions to address the
problem of spam. The OECD should show leadership in addressing what has
become the top consumer protection problem for the Internet --- the
explosion of spam. Many people now find it difficult to use email, and the
costs of spam are increasing every day. The FTC now receives approximately
10 thousand forwards of spam every day, and appears to have no program to
address this problem.

We are realistic about the problems in finding consensus on a wide range of
possible spam issues, and we are not asking you to do this in the short
term. We are specifically asking the FTC and the OECD to determine where
there are areas of consensus that can be reached. We believe this is
achievable, if any effort is directed at this problem. For example, a simple
agreement that countries should prohibit persons from sending unsolicited
commercial email from accounts with forged addresses and mail headers would
be very useful. It would also be useful agree to require senders of such
messages to identify the real names and address of the firm making the
solicitation. Thus, even if global consensus is not achievable right now on
issues such as opt-in or opt-out, you can do things that will make things
better. The fact that this has not happened already is evidence that public
officials have not made much of an effort to address the problem.

We have been pushing for global action on spam for several years, noting
also that this is the topic of resolutions adopted by the Trans Atlantic
Consumer Dialogue. Contrast the lack of attention to complaints about spam,
which are a daily headache for millions of angry email users, including
children who receive pornographic spam and elderly persons who receive
countless fraud schemes every day, with the massive effort by federal and
global agencies to address such issues as invalid addresses in domain name
registrations and other efforts designed to protect intellectual property
owners. The FTC needs to act even when the parties who need action do not
have high priced lobbyists.

Ralph Nader

James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
mailto:james.love () cptech org
http://www.cptech.org
http://www.cptech.org/ecom/spam/


--------------------
James Love, mailto:james.love () cptech org, http://www.cptech.org
voice +1.202.387.8030, mobile +1.202.361.3040, fax +1.202.234.5176



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--------------------
James Love, mailto:james.love () cptech org, http://www.cptech.org
voice +1.202.387.8030, mobile +1.202.361.3040, fax +1.202.234.5176



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